HOW THANKSGIVING RE-INVENTED ITSELF...

Relax and let me tell you the story of how Thanksgiving re-invented itself.  Pour a drink, cut a piece of pie or carve a slice of ham or turkey or lamb and make a quick sandwich...  What you are about to read is as essential to being American as anything can get, this story is about the ability of a people to change and improve themselves...

Above the enchanting olfactions of Thanksgiving, sweet potato pie, roast turkey, corn bread muffins, giblet gravy, oyster stuffing, collard greens and such or rather woven within it is the unspoken story about how Thanksgiving re-invented itself… or how Americans re-invented it… it truly is a remarkable and heroic story...

As most American stories go, it was a collaboration between every race sex and religion, it was a nations accomplishment .. and for this we should all be thankful and proud...  I know of no other place on earth where such fundamental change in the psyche of a people could have happened.  America, over 200 years after its invention is still a truly remarkable place that celebrates freedom and equality and is forgiving of the simple human foibles for the greater good of mankind... Thank you America!

Thanksgiving is a patently American Holiday which traces its origin back to a seminal feast of questionable historical accuracy between English colonists and a tribe of Aboriginal inhabitants of North America in commemoration of the first successful year of settlement of Europeans in the new world.  As such, Thanksgiving has got to be the most ironic of all American holidays when one considers the inevitability of that protracted historical tragedy that would ultimately spell the utter demise of all Native Americans!  One must surely reconsider if the Native Americans were truly on board with this apocalyptic death wish in the making or whether this American Myth was invented to smooth over the gruesome historically documented reality we all know to be true… But what matters now that many centuries lay between the marginalization of  native Americans is how we treat history.  The bitterness of those times deserves to be told in truth.  Now this is a topic most appropriately discussed whilst enjoying a bountiful thanksgiving spread or afterwards, sipping aperitif and fine home crafted desserts and pastry.

Unlike other old traditions that become culturally obsolete though nonetheless continue to occupy our calendars, Thanksgiving has undergone perhaps one of the most comprehensive makeovers as holidays go; preserved now as a node of gratitude for the many blessings quantified within the past year of our lives, a time for family and friends to convene around a table of thankfulness, charity and humility.  That is the true meaning of Thanksgiving…  Let us lift our full glasses of wine, beer, spirits, sweet tea or cool-aid in a toast to the fine art of moving on!

Thanksgiving was able to morph into a totally different kind of holiday precisely because it was mythical in nature.  Unlike Columbus day, (mythical but in different ways), which celebrates the scatterbrained meanderings of a lost European navigator who unwittingly stumbles upon civilizations previously known to the ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Persians and Vikings whose knowledge had been conveniently lost or destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church, Thanksgiving never existed to make legitimate any claim on authorship or discovery.  It never was anything more than a humble wiping of the brow at the end of a difficult planting season that would have gone hopelessly awry were it not for the generous intervention of Native Americans whose horticultural knowledge of indigenous species greatly surpassed those of their soon to be oppressors… but that is another story too…  And this is a point that, were it a movie, there would appear a caption floating upon the screen, “Take sip of cocktail now”!

That is why today we can so easily transition into the newly defined traditions of the giving of thanks but in so doing we should also incorporate a moment of sober contemplation of the loss of thousands of nations of human beings, lost languages, traditions, technology, wisdom and philosophy.  We cannot, should not merely switch out one horrible mistake of a tradition for one that sits better upon our conscience… Take this time to memorialize the struggle of our brothers and sisters who began cultivating this great nation over ten, thousand years ago… remember them… making a mental note that it was through their sacrifice and our consciousness that Thanksgiving was able to re-invent itself…  Not to make Thanksgiving into a lugubrious day of mourning… but to take just a moment of time to remember where it all really started.  We should all be joyful that the tradition of Thanksgiving has been cleaned-up and revised to better suit the needs of American people and no time is this holiday so precious than now when we are experiencing some of the most difficult economic times in the history of this country.

I am so glad that we have Thanksgiving…  I see the proud cooks showing their turkeys and holiday dishes on Facebook I smell the sweet and savory culinary creations wafting down the halls of my apartment building… everywhere there is the smell of joy and happiness and thankfulness that we were able to even live to experience this day.  What happened in the past is done… forgiven but not forgotten… what happens in the present and the future is our legacy to uphold.   Nothing says this better than the first glimpse of a fabulous thanksgiving spread prepared with love… Cheers! And Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

FIN

Written by David Vollin